Earthworm Jim

Written by Kyle Coare in PC Game Reviews, Friday 22 August, 2008

Can of Worms

Anyone thats read any of my reviews will have probably guessed that I like the older games, this is partly due to me being around when they came out, but mostly because my computer isn't, how do you say it, a top range monster, in fact my computer only classes as a PC due to the fact that it can do word processing a bit quicker than using a typewriter with no ink! Anyway enough about my lack of a decent PC, the reason I started with this is that this game will run on anything under 10 years old.

Earthworm Jim was released many many years ago, on a distant console known as MegaDrive. Its a 2D Platform game, that for about a year or two made many marketing people happy. At the time there were EJ cartoons, Comics, Watches and anything else that you could sell. But before all of that there was just one very nice game, this is the story of that game!

This was first released on pretty much any console/Computer that you could think about, and to this day is still being released on modern consoles, this is a complement to its greatness. Made by Shiny Entertainment, it promised a lot before its release and thankfully for Mark Perry and his team it pretty much did what they had promised.

As with a lot of the games around the time, this was a 2D platform game, for all of you newer gamers, this was a game where you went through levels all viewed from a side on perspective jumping on platforms etc.
The difference with this and most others at the time was that this had a lot of humour, there are times that you will just leave the controls alone to see what Jimmy boy will do next.

The basic idea of the game is that you are an earthworm, that has had a magic suit fall on him, causing you to have super strength and other such powers. As soon as the evil queen found about this she instantly kidnapped your future girlfriend, now obviously your not to happy about this and go on a mission to find her.

This will take you through about 16 levels, all with varied puzzles and ideas. On the first level you are in a junk yard, there are lots of enemy's such as crows that will try to eat poor Jim, and dogs that again will try eating Jim but from a much more painful angle!!

There are puzzles involved that while not in anyway taxing on your brain, may have you wandering for a couple of seconds. The first of these is how to get past a cow, there is a fridge dangling from a wire and the cow is sat on a seesaw! obvious really isnt it! Just dont forget about the poor cow as you launch it into space, you will see it again!

Now the layout of the levels is perfect, there are enough secret areas to keep completists happy, but they can also be gotten through fairly quickly if you know what to do.

Not all of the levels are your typical side on scroller though, after every level there is a race with your arch nemises Psycrow the Killer crow, Whilst these races arnt difficult you may still lose, if you do you get to have a one on one battle with the crow, these are quite good fun, and a bit of a change from the normal game.

One level "Snot a problem", sees you dangling from a bungee rope in a battle against a snot monster, this is fast paced and good fun but can be fairly difficult at first. Other levels include one where you must keep your sweet pet dog from any harm, if you dont he turns into a big scary monster dog that will eat you, now this is a fairly difficult level, you will have to whip your dog to get him over holes then shoot enemys that will harm your dog.

These different styles of level are what makes this game a joy to play even to this day, unlike all of the other 2D platform games, you really want to see what its gonna throw at you next.

I tend to play this with a control pad, but it is just as enjoyable with keys. There are three basic buttons, Jump, Shoot and whip. Using the whip button will make Jim pull himself out of the suit and whip enemies or do an Indiana Jones style swing from hooks etc. If you use it whilst jumping it will make jim stay in the air longer by using himself like an helicopter! The controls are simple and effective and they make it a fairly easy game to pick up and start straight away.

For its day, these were some of the best platform graphics seen, obviously since then things have improved but these are still very good. They are cartoony, colourfull and clear. The animation is spot on, its worth playing just to see some of the charactures moving around in the game! Each levels graphics are varied enough to keep you interested and add a lot to the enjoyment level.

I'm not really a fan of Music in computer games, it just never actually sounds like music, and this game does nothing to change my opinion on that.

For me this game was always an essential game to own, as soon as it was released I had to have it, ive since owned it on nearly every machine that ive had and id have to say the Pc version is easily the best, the Graphics are slightly improved and there are a couple of added levels. The game is available as Abandonware but im not gonna go into the legality of getting a copy this way! If you do want to buy it, it shouldn't cost anymore than five pounds.

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